Runelords 15.3 - Aldern, Lord Foxglove and the Skinsaw Man
Nightmares. Horrible nightmares. Painful, screaming, hate-filled visions of murder and disease, choking, cutting, bleeding, burning, dying. Every night they came, and sometimes they would creep out during the days so that the young Aldern couldn’t tell if he was day-dreaming or sleeping or dying for real. He couldn’t escape them: the harder he hid, the more terrifying they’d be, as if the whole house wanted to hurt him. His nursemaid tried to comfort him, but her words rang hollow as they were unable to banish the hate-filled ghosts. His father, when he told him once, laughed and scolded and went about his business with a determination, like nothing was ever wrong or could ever be wrong as long as there was work to be done, and there was always work to be done. His mother held no comfort either, remaining distant and pre-occupied like something was always on her mind, tugging at her attention and drawing it to empty rooms and blank walls. They argued sometimes, he overheard; something about moving away from whatever ate at his mother, but his father wouldn’t hear of it. Aldern never told his sisters about the nightmares of hate-fueled torture that wouldn’t end, because he could see the fear in their eyes, like his own, and they all knew there was nothing they could do for each other, except give voice to a pain they would rather ignore and forget. Things wouldn’t get better. He just wanted them to go away, to leave him alone. One day, the nightmares stopped. As he lay in bed, knowing that the ghosts were coming, he fell asleep, and almost as suddenly, it was morning and he was awake again, and there had been no pain, no screaming, no fear and hate that he couldn’t escape. Just a blackness; a short, dreamless sleep that led to morning. At first he was still afraid, but the blackness came again and again, taking the place of the nightmares and leaving him with only happy days and nights free from the ghosts that plagued his family. Aldern stopped giving it any thought: the young boy would much rather forget everything, and just be glad for the blessed blankness of memory. The servants who remained with the Foxgloves in their manor, which people called the Misgivings behind their backs for all its strange unpleasantness, noticed that the young boy started to show some peculiar habits, especially at night. He was always a sweet and cheerful child, who loved sports and minded his manners and wasn’t the best at spelling, but now sometimes his expression took a dark cast, and he was found in places he shouldn’t, staring at things that were not his but would be one day. He lashed out at any servant who dared to tell him to leave or go to bed, calling him their master and defying their wisdom and direction with a vicious temper. The parents were told but had little regard, so involved were they with their own concerns and visions. The little “master” was allowed to moodily stalk the halls, and the servants retreated from his temper, for who were they to step in where the parents wouldn’t? It was the house, they swore, no place for a man and certainly not a child, and even more people quit the place before it got to them too. --------- The servant’s quarters burned through the night, and the nursemaid cowered in the nearby woods with the three noble children she had fetched and carried away to safety. Terrible things had happened: she knew from the other servants who had come to and from the house as they tried to stop the fire and to get help from the nearby farms and village of Sandpoint. The lord and lady were both dead, they whispered to her: she had set the building on fire, they thought, and he had chased her and they had fought and now she was dashed on the rocks, they guessed, and his throat was cut and both were dead at the lord’s hands, it seemed. They whispered all this around and above the children, trying to keep it from them, though the magnitude of the horror made it too much to keep in strict confidence. The girls were afraid and cried in confusion and loss, too young to understand but old enough to fret. Aldern stood very quietly and looked towards the house, sighting signs of fire through the trees. When the maid tried to pull his attention away, he said that he would have to build the house again; when she asked why, it was because he was the lord now, and this was his house. His tone was cold and it chilled the maid, and she turned her attentions towards the two girls. Aldern would later admit he had no real memory of the night his parents died. ----------- Aldern and his sisters were moved across the province to live with some distant relatives of their mother’s. Far away from the cursed house and its ghosts, the nightmares left and the children prospered; their parents had already been so distant that their loss was sad but not devastating to the young ones, whose nursemaid had followed them to the new home. Free of the Misgiving’s horrors, they were allowed a happy childhood like none of them had ever known. Sometimes though, at night, or when he was scared, the blackness would come over Aldern, and he would wake up later in a different place, or in his bed. He would shake his head and continue on, not paying it any mind. It was better than being afraid. ---------------- When he was a young man and through with school, Aldern returned to Medinipur. His father had a variety of businesses and responsibilities that had fallen to him, as his son, to take up upon reaching adulthood. It wasn’t difficult work, for the most part; he managed financial resources, oversaw some shipping and trading business, collected rent from land he owned, as well as attending and hosting meetings and society functions: parties, dinners and hunts. The last task seemed to be the most important one, seeing as how the businesses had been running on their own for so long now. He practically only needed to collect the money at the end of the day, leaving him to spend it however he wanted; spend it he did. As the last remaining Foxglove, an old and once-powerful family, Aldern found himself part of high society: a distinction he enjoyed for its mannerisms and parties, and welcomed for its ease. In Medinipur, he learned of his inherited membership in the Brotherhood: an allegiance of powerful men, the patriarchs of wealthy and renowned families, who steered much of the business and politics of Medinipur in their favour from the shadows. The Foxgloves had long been part of this organization, but Aldern considered his membership of little regard: he had small station in the city and only moderate wealth compared to the other members, minimizing any contribution he might give to their machinations. Further, he suspected that the others had little in the way of respect for him: much of his family’s wealth and power had been lost by his great grand-uncle Vorel, he knew, and his family had ever since held a whispered reputation for misfortune and lunacy. Aldern didn’t mind the subtle scorn altogether too much; he was comfortable and happy, so it made little difference to him. Although, he still had blackouts, sometimes. He never really remembered going to any meetings of the Brotherhood, though he was sure that he attended at least some of them, didn’t he? It was often that he found notes and reminders to himself in his handwriting that he couldn't recall leaving. Sometimes he’d wake up feeling sore, as though he had been doing something much more strenuous than sleeping. At all these things, he shook his head and brushed it off, paying it no mind. It wasn’t anything to worry about, he was sure. Sometimes, as Aldern read through the daily papers and listened to local gossip, he would hear tales of nobles who had been the tragic victims of circumstance: disfiguring, crippling accidents, sometimes even death. The names were usually familiar, if not their faces; he vaguely recalled, in one case, that the man in question had scorned him at a function recently, poking fun at the Foxglove family's misfortune. His death was apparently extremely gruesome. These thoughts were unpleasant so he put them aside, but he spared a moment of pity for that man’s own misfortune. ------------ Aisha Doirnain was beautiful. She was intelligent and good humoured and kind, and Aldern couldn’t stop thinking of her ever since he had met her at a party one night. She was from out of town, out of country as it was, a native of Aive, and he simply had to see her again. And again. And again. They were married seven weeks after that party. Aldern was never known for his sensibility. -------------- With a wife and the promise of a family, Aldern turned his considerations towards his state of living. His townhouse was fine but not for raising children, and he couldn’t seem to find a larger house in the city that suited both his expensive tastes and his income. His thoughts turned back towards Foxglove Manor, all recollections of the fear and horror erased by the comforting blackness in his memories. It was a lovely house, from what he recalled, though it would likely require some fixing up. The lease on it was soon to expire as well, though perhaps the Brotherhood would consider extending the lease, if he was using it. It wasn’t as though the land was particularly valuable that far out of Medinipur or Sandpoint. Taking Aisha, he went to the house and began to assess the improvements that would be required. --------- Aisha frowned, scuffed her foot and crossed her arms. She didn’t like this room. Something about the other paintings gave her a bad feeling. It was as though they were watching her, and it was as if sometimes they moved. The whole house gave her a bad feeling, honestly: it was damaged and rotten, yes, and everything was covered in this awful mould, but there was something else about it that was strange, and she didn’t like it. She especially didn’t like this room. Aldern smiled and waved away her concerns. It needed a lot of cleaning, to be sure, but that was all. She was being silly. He agreed to hang her portrait in their bedroom instead of the gallery, though, if it would make her feel better. He didn’t mention that seemed to be forgetting more and more of his days and nights. ---------- Aisha yelled that she had had enough. This place was haunted, a dump, and she wouldn’t stay here any longer, certainly not to raise a child. It was giving her nightmares, messing with her head, and it was making him weird. He was acting strange, stranger than normal, and if this was what he was really like than she would have nothing to do with him or his haunted mansion. She had married him on a whim and would leave him just as easily, child or not. Women were always ruining everything, the manor whispered. Nothing ruined a Foxglove and his prosperity faster than a woman. Aldern did not hear this whisper. Lord Foxglove, however, agreed wholeheartedly. He was the lord of this manor and he would not be told otherwise, especially by a low-born woman who had merely come into the good fortune of Aldern’s favour. Aldern was a twit, though, and Lord Foxglove had little patience for the woman Aldern had married, sharing none of his passion for her. The Misgivings called for a permanent silence to her whining and insubordination. Its rightful lord wrapped his hands around her neck and granted it, to the satisfaction of both himself and the ghosts of the house. When Aldern came to, his wife was dead, throttled by hands that could only possibly be his own. He screamed. ---------- Aldern fled back to Medinipur, panicked and desperate. He had left Aisha’s body behind. Aldern beseeched the Brotherhood to hide the affair, to make it like it never happened, not that he knew how it had happened anyways. The Brotherhood kindly granted his request. For a price. Five hundred gold a month was crippling, but he swore that he could afford it. Anything to make everything go away. He asked for how long he was to pay the debt, and the men grinned like wolves. The blackouts were still frequent, and for the first time, he thought that perhaps it wasn’t the harmless blessing that he had thought it was. --------- Managing the debt was difficult. Managing the grief and guilt and fear was difficult. Aldern wished he didn’t keep having blackouts. They didn’t help. Months passed, and he considered a vacation; Sandpoint wasn’t far, and they were having a festival soon. Without warning, one day he received a letter from “The Mistress of Seven”, telling him that he could pay off his debt. He hastened to her meeting place without delay: anything to remove this millstone around his neck. The woman was beautiful, with pale skin and red hair that certainly wasn’t from around the area. To wipe away his debt to the Brotherhood, he only needed to do her some favours. Small trifles. To start: some of the mould from his manor. He blanched at the prospect of going into that house, but there was nothing for it: he couldn’t keep up the Brotherhood’s demand for gold. He would return to the Misgivings after the Swallowtail Festival. --------- It was a nice trip, all things considered. Not the goblin attack, obviously, but he had met new friends. Adventurers, no less! He had taken his mind off of his problems, at least for a short while. For the first time, he had admitted publicly that Aisha was not just on vacation, but rather no longer of this world; he was still much too terrified to let anyone in Medinipur have even the slightest hint of the truth, but here in Sandpoint, where no one would look into anything or make a fuss, he decided to reveal at least that much. Now he stood on the doorstep of his manor once more, and shuddered to think what was inside. He had dismissed the assistants he had hired for the trip and sent them off ahead; he certainly didn’t want anyone else to see. Steeling himself, he walked briskly inside, aiming to head to the laboratory straight away; it had the most mould, he figured. Walking through the house was difficult, as the sorrow and guilt lay on him. He didn’t even make it downstairs before he blacked out, and the Lord continued where he had left off. The best mould wasn’t in the laboratory, Lordship knew; it was in the sanctum further down, in the cavern by the water, past the rough-hewn tunnel where Vorel’s monstrous undying mount hung in eternal slumber, waiting for an order from its master. Lordship, though he would never admit to not being able to control it, wisely decided to let sleeping bats hang. Completing his task by scraping a large section of mould into a set of jars for the woman who styled herself as Mistress, Lordship prepared to leave: there was precious little reason to stay here with so much business in Medinipur, all required to ensure that he would have enough gold to pay off the Brotherhood’s ransom. Aldern had tarried too long in Sandpoint, and it wouldn’t do to have the greedy wolves inform the authorities of the murder. He sorely wished Aldern had kept his fool mouth shut; it wasn’t like anyone would have found evidence, and it would have been easy to say that the woman had run off back to Aive. It was hardly different than the excuse they were using now! It never paid to let Aldern know anything, the dithering soft-hearted idiot. It was good that he was there to be the lord they were supposed to be. A sound of sobbing caught his attention and he paused. It wasn’t the normal delusion caused by the ghosts, that he had mastered and generally ignored since he was five, but rather an actual person. He stormed upstairs, wondering who dared trespass on his land. In the bedroom, he saw a woman crying in front of a painting of Aldern’s late wife. The woman was Aldern’s late wife. She was obviously bereft of life, her skin pale and rotting, with dark bruises still horribly visible on her neck where she had been strangled. He drew his sword and eyed her cautiously, walking around and poking her tentatively with the blade. Eventually, he flipped the painting backwards, breaking the object of her attention as he wondered curiously just what this creature was. As he did, the woman turned to him and snarled, pure and utter hatred in her eyes. She screeched Aldern’s name as she lunged, her claw-like hands outstretched. Lordship fought her back and the room was torn to shreds as they struggled. The undead outclassed the human, and Lordship looked for an escape. Breaking away, he ran to the attic in an attempt to lose her. Aisha followed as though she could smell him, hell-bent on avenging her death. To his luck though, a well-placed mirror that had been left in storage diverted her attention as she moved for the kill. She returned to sobbing and Lordship crawled away, too afraid that a strike would draw her notice again without ending her permanently. Let her sob, he decided, making his way to the door. Nursing his wounds, he ruminated on how he much preferred assassins and sabotage to face-to-face combat: not only was this simple to trace, but getting injured like this was just uncivilized. As he left, his mind fixated on the revenant. How had an insipid, low-born peasant of a woman like that returned as the living dead? This place was steeped in far more negative magic than even he had considered. He wouldn't have left the body here if he had known. He wouldn't have left the body out at all if he hadn't lost control just then, leaving Aldern to act like the imbecile he was. It was frustrating, having to steer Aldern in the correct direction while keeping him blissfully unaware of what he, Lord Foxglove, had to do to ensure their success. Unfortunately, Aldern was weak, Aldern was afraid, and it was up to him to be the better of them. The responsible one, the successful one, the true lord who would have the respect, wealth and power that he was due. As he rode back to Medinipur, Aldern gained control again. He wondered how he had gotten where he was, and how he had gotten so injured, but he had the mould and he wasn’t in the manor, and that was enough for him. ------------ A day after the mould was delivered, Aldern got another message requesting a favour for the Mistress. He panicked in his empty townhouse, afraid of returning to the manor, afraid of what he might have to do, afraid that this was what his life would be. Regardless, he left to meet her. She was still beautiful, still smiling, as she told him she would need more. A vague feeling of infatuation, of trust, of adoration crept into his mind as she spoke. Aldern might be dim enough to allow someone to alter his mind, but Lordship would not suffer this intrusion. He informed her of such. The Mistress was well-pleased to make the acquaintance of the Lordship, who made his intentions to end the debt quite clear. She was to name her price openly; he would not bandy about with endless deals the way Aldern had. The Mistress smiled and cooed, and Lordship never really considered why he thought it was a reasonable idea to tell her everything that he knew: he was no less susceptible to the enchanting woman's magical charms than Aldern was, after all. He told her of the dead woman returned and the power of his manor; who knows how powerful the mould could be as an arcane reagent, considering that? The Mistress smiled and celebrated his worthiness as an agent; surely he, the Lord, would be much more capable than mere Aldern at fulfilling her needs. There were a group of people she needed killed, in a certain way, and she hoped that he would be able to do this. The charmed Lordship agreed to her terms unquestioningly; it wasn't as though he hadn't killed people before, and he only cared that he wouldn’t be hounded by the Brotherhood, who had been instigated by Aldern’s loose tongue and kept attentive by his ridiculous debt. As long as she kept her end of the deal, he would do her dirty work. She gave him a list of people who lived nearby his manor and who needed to die, along with the instructions for the exact manner of the deed. He memorized it and eschewed a written log: the less Aldern ever knew of this, the better. She added as a corollary that she would like more mould, as well as rats this time, seeing as how he was going out that way anyways. He found this reasonable, thanks to the magic, and begged his leave. Aldern left the meeting without any real memory of what it was about. He didn’t mind, since the note he had apparently scribbled for himself was clear: bring back mould and rats, and this time, he would be free. The Mistress smiled as the curious dual-minded person left. She had a plan, a plan where she lost nothing in any case, and stood to gain much. She began to pack up a few things for travel: she would need to make a quick jaunt out to Foxglove Manor. An undead minion was much more powerful than a living one, and she had many people in need of overpowering; a rotting, blood-thirsty wretch in the countryside was unlikely to draw attention back to her and her machinations in town, and it wouldn't be hard to set up a distraction to throw off nosy adventurers or lawmakers who learned too much. The rats in the manor visibly carried a deadly disease, he had told her; with any luck, they would kill him, whereupon the negative energy of the manor could facilitate the transformation that she desired. If they didn't, well, that's what the trip was for. ------------ The mould wasn't difficult to collect, but the rats were another story. Getting near them was difficult, since there were so many of them. They would swarm at the first scent of edible flesh; luring just one or two was an impossibility. Worse than that, the rats seemed to die with the slightest provocation, so poor was their health. Aldern was no stranger to hunting and trapping, but this was an entirely new problem. As he struggled with his task, the house stirred. The severed, distorted soul of Vorel did not appreciate things being taken, or things being changed. The Misgivings hated to be disturbed, even if it was by the current master himself. The mould seemed to flare with the house's anger, and its spores filled the air. Aldern was afraid of staying. He was afraid of leaving. He was alone. He was trapped. He began to cough, and despaired. Lord Foxglove refused to leave, when Aldern could no longer face the unseen, tangible hatred of the Misgivings. He would complete his mission; he had to, if he had any hope of reclaiming what little noble dignity and wealth he had left from his predecessors. Another day passed; the cough worsened, joined by a fever and exhaustion, and the visions and sensations became too much for even him to ignore, weakening him, distracting him, keeping him unable to muster the strength and purpose to either finish the job or escape. The illness progressed so fast that by the next day he was nearly too sick to move, and the ghosts removed any hope he had of remaining lucid. He lay dying, muttering, coughing, screaming, spitting hatred and fury at his lost chances and ruined glory, his rants indistinguishable from the manor's own loathing. The Mistress stood over his sweating, twitching, delirious body and smiled. The man certainly wasn't coming out of this alive, but she dearly hoped he'd come out of it a bit more than just dead. She penned him a note, leaving it propped up with a gift: a mask and a sword, two brutal, crude-looking instruments fitting for a monster with a monstrous task. Hopefully, she would see her out-of-town work completed without hassle or trace back to her and her corrupted Brotherhood, when whatever he became started to move against the living and complete his unfinished business, as undead almost certainly did. How convenient for her, that he died trying to do her bidding. She turned on her heel and left Lord Aldern Foxglove to die alone. ---------- The manor was soaked with negative energy; every inch, every spore, every mote of dust, was filled with hate and malice, loss and bitterness, fear and desperation. It was the accumulated sorrows and misfortunes of every Foxglove who had entered this house, each one feeding its corruption and eventually succumbing to its curse. Seven Foxgloves had died here, threatening to extinguish the family name entirely. This time, however, there was a difference: there were no loyal servants left, no lingering nursemaid or butler or well-meaning serf to collect the body of the newly-dead Aldern and remove him from the blasted mansion, saving him from the wretched evil that inundated the area. Dying there and left to rot, Aldern's soul was not allowed freedom in death; the hatred of the Misgivings made sure of that. The house was built to herald the birth of an undying Lord Vorel; generations later, Vorel's failure had led to a new undead Foxglove in his place, and the particular familicidal sins of him and his family ensured that the new lord was a powerful master indeed. -------- The ghast opened his eyes, glancing around. He took in his surroundings, and took stock of himself. It didn't take long to realize where he was, and what he had become. The manor was silent, the ghosts absent, the rats chittering far away elsewhere; the house had no malevolence towards the dead. He was powerful: strong, fast, acute, nimble. He felt his fangs and claws with his fingers and tongue, and he knew that he was assuredly something to fear. He grinned. He was not the innocent Aldern, whose hid behind layers of his own mind to mask his hardships and uncertainties. He was not the cynical Lordship, whose consuming ambitions lay in the realm of noble pursuits. He was someone else. He was undead. He was a monster born of a curse of hate and suffering on his family. What did he care for noble society? What did he have to fear? Everything was so utterly clear to him: eating flesh was paramount, was the only thing that really, truly mattered. What other cares should he have? But he understood Aldern's fears and Lordship's desires, and pitied them. He would help them, because they were all the same man, at the end of it. He saw the sword, and went to claim it. The mask and the note lay beside it, and he considered both. Yes, the Mistress and her mission, he was reminded from the note that he jammed into his pocket. It wasn't concerning to him; one human would likely taste as good as any other, and what did he care about some woman and her petty desires and the schemes of a group of weak, living, aged men? But it was certainly important to the others: Aldern was terrified that people learn his secret, and Lordship needed to have his money and respect back if he was to continue to climb the social ladder. He resolved to solve their problems: he would complete the Mistress' trifling tasks, for the others who were himself. Who was he, he considered briefly. He was neither Aldern nor Lord Foxglove, and that left no names for him. He looked at the two objects left for him: the mask, a crudely-sewn patchwork of tanned skin, and the serrated sword that resembled a saw blade made for battle. He donned them both and chuckled. Skin mask, saw blade. Skinsaw. He could be Skinsaw. Enough time wasted, he considered as he quickly left the building, his strides almost becoming a run. He was hungry. So hungry. Luckily, there were some farms nearby. ----------- Aldern regained his consciousness. As always, he had no idea how long he had been asleep. As first, he wondered where he was. He didn’t recognize it. Then he wondered why his mouth felt strange. Everything felt strange. With a growing horror, he saw his clawed hands, covered in blood. He felt his razor teeth and unnaturally long tongue. He felt his hair missing, his skin strange and blistering. He noticed that he wasn’t breathing, and his pulse was gone. Gripped in terror beyond comprehension, Aldern clutched his knees and prayed for this to be a dream; a horrible vision, a nightmare, anything. Anything to make it not real. Anything to make it go away. As always, Lordship was happy to oblige. He stared at his blood-soaked hand, looking at the claws, the skin that had already begun to putrefy. He could smell the stench of rot, undoubtedly coming from him. He had died. He had died in his house and it had made him into this creature, like it had turned Aisha before him. But he was no lowly monster like her, driven by sorrow and rage, dumb to everything else; he had no great knowledge of reanimated creatures, but he at least knew he still possessed his mind. He was still the lord. He considered his hand still: lord of what, he wondered. He was a terror, a horror, relegated to fringes and basements away from humankind. He couldn't go back to Medinipur like this; he couldn't go anywhere. He didn't know what to do. With a thoughtful frown, he realized he didn't know what he had been doing; he always knew what Aldern spent his time on, but here he was, covered in blood, not quite sure how he had gotten here. As he sat and thought as deeply as he could, vague memories came to him: he had woken, gone to a farm, fought...eaten? And returned here. Nothing was distinct, as though remembering the story of a book read long ago. A word came to his mind: Skinsaw. It had meaning, he knew, and as he considered it, he realized he knew precisely what that meaning was. There was another man with them now. Lordship made a tight-lipped frown. --------- When Aldern woke from the blackness, he was always in the sanctum. He was always covered in blood: it was on his hands, his nails, his teeth, his face. The blood wasn’t his own. He knew that he wasn’t sleeping, and that he wasn’t passing out. He was doing things, horrible things. Like Aisha. Was she...not the first? Had this always been happening, every time there was a gap in his memories? He didn’t know, and he couldn’t begin to fathom the implication. Once, he looked outside the room. When he peered up from the chasm he was in, he could see other people. They were deformed as well, with fangs and claws and complexions of death: ghouls. They looked towards him and he fled back into the room, too terrified to go out. He was trapped in the tiny study. Trapped by his fear of himself. He panicked and sobbed until the darkness came for him again, as it always did. --------- Lordship mulled. He sat in the dank study, considering, plotting, thinking deeply about his situation and how he might possibly better it. He wished he had ideas. He drummed his fingers. Skinsaw, meanwhile, had been availing himself of the local peasant population, which was of little concern to him. Indeed, it was rather beneficial, seeing as how some of them had apparently risen again. He had the power to make new undead, and command them at will: excellent, seeing as how he would need more servants, attendants who wouldn't balk or comment on his appearance and state. He drummed his fingers still. So many things to address. He still had his manor, but it was dilapidated and on loan; even at it's prime, it's location in the middle of nowhere made it at best a summer retreat. He couldn't live here forever, and forever had suddenly taken on a very serious, literal meaning. His townhouse was in Medinipur, and he had no way of getting there without being caught and dispatched for looking the way he did. Even if he could get there, there was no way he could sustainably survive without some sort of plan. The rate at which Skinsaw was killing peasants for them meant that he would have a terrible time hiding his actions in a city, not to mention that the servants themselves needed to feed. The logistics were distressing and the stakes were high, even for a businessman such as himself. It was frustrating! He was so close: he was immortal, he was powerful, and he still had all of his wealth and the power of his name, if only he could find some way to reconcile it, claim it all in a way he wouldn't be found out for the creature he was. He could have everything! But there was so much risk: a wrong move meant being executed. The worst part was, he needed a plan quickly: peasants were dying, and when peasants were dying, adventurers would come. Adventurers who would come with swords and magic to destroy whomever was using the stupid, useless peasants for something as important as food, not that they would understand. Lordship wondered if it would be the four adventurers who had been in Sandpoint before, who had saved Aldern from his own incompetence. He wondered if it would be Luna. Oh, Luna. Lordship had spent many an hour after returning to Medinipur thinking about her. About her hair, a sandy wave of loose curls, her eyes, a magnificent gem green that sparkled like no other eyes he had ever seen, the way she smiled, so shy, so demure, so polite. There was a natural refinement there, a decorum that was so natural to her that it showed even without the years of training she had missed, a gift so lacking from near every other woman he had met, including the insipid Aisha. Oh, Luna was far from insipid, she was learned and skilled and capable, he knew. She had been working for the inn, for the church, for the local scholar, and even without training she had talent and precision at every task she took. She had grace and delicacy, but intelligence and calculation. She was an adventurer! She knew that measures had to be taken sometimes. She knew how to handle herself. She might not have been born noble, but Lordship was progressive: she had told him how she had worked her way to a position of prestige in the hospital she worked, a hospital that was so much more than a place of medicine but the cornerstone of life and culture in her island home. Sometimes birth was not enough, and one has to work to attain the position they desire. Those people should be lauded for their efforts, especially if it was someone as beautiful and wonderful as her. What a wonderful lady she would make, with some lessons in correct etiquette and manner. What a perfect, beautiful Lady Foxglove. Skinsaw smiled. Lordship so desperately wanted her, this woman Luna. Adventurers would come where there were deaths, so she would certainly see the murders he was about to commit for Aldern and Lordship's sake. He would leave her notes; invitations to come join Lordship in his house. With his power, she could be immortal, like him! Wouldn't they both be so happy? Who wouldn't be? And she was so smart, he was certain she could solve whatever middling problems had Lordship so confused, and maybe she could make Aldern stop panicking as well. Skinsaw donned his mask and walked out, glad that problems were so easily solved.Category:Rise of the Runelords